Best Ways to Engage Your Audience Using Instagram Stories

Being one of the most popular social media platforms around the world, Instagram is basically the goldmine for marketers, businesses, and entrepreneurs. Over the past decade, Instagram has evolved from just users sharing heavily-filtered photos to Instagram Live, Advertisement, Stories, and Reels. Instagram engagement goes way deeper and it’s not always just about the followers count, views, or likes, but oftentimes it’s more about how our target audiences are taking action when they see our content. Take a step back and think about why you’re on Instagram, you might just remember that it wasn’t originally about the numbers but instead, it was more fostering connections with your audiences. Without the proper connection and interaction with your target audiences, you’re essentially talking to an empty room.

With the increasing viewership and an incredible potential reach with approximately 500+ million Instagram users viewing Stories each day, it’s no secret that Instagram Stories are a big deal. However, with the never-ending changing algorithms and new features, we know it’s not easy to keep on top of these Instagram trends all the time and if you’re struggling to make sense of Stories, we truly get it. In this post, we want to share some key tactics and practices that we believe can help you to increase your Instagram Stories engagement. Afterall, with all the hard work going into creating your stories, you will want to make sure that you are connecting and engaging with your targeting audience!

Here’s your guide to make 24 hours last a lifetime.

1.  Design Instagram Stories that Match Your Brand Aesthetic

It’s all about the aesthetic, especially on Instagram. The colours, layout, tone, and overall vibes of your Instagram page contribute to an aesthetic that can either help you gain followers or send them running. A brand aesthetic is also one of the key ways to convey your brand’s voice and personality. 

By creating Instagram Stories that match your brand aesthetic it will help you stand out from the crowd and give your audiences a sense of familiarity that will keep them coming back for more!

2. Play Around with Different Content to Understand What Type of Content Resonates with Your Audience Best

With the long list of possible content that can be published on Instagram Stories, by figuring out what are the best kind of content your audiences resonate with the most will be one of the key ways to increase your  viewership and engagement levels. 

If you are seeing tons of views and engagement in a certain series, that’s when you should start implementing changes to your concept board and content strategies. From behind the scenes, step-by-step, beauty tutorials to even user-generated content, ultimately, it’s all about maximising your content ideas while staying aligned with your brand aesthetics. 

3. Include Hashtags in Instagram Stories to Improve Your Reach

Hashtags are literally everywhere on Instagram and they wouldn’t be if there wasn’t a good reason why!  With Instagram’s Algorithm, with the right use of Instagram Hashtags, you’ll get your posts seen by more people who have a high interest in your content. 

That said, to use hashtags effectively, you will need to understand how these works as hashtags strategies aren’t one-size-fits-all. There are different types of hashtags that each serve a different purpose. If you have not done so, it’s time to put in some time and effort for your brand’s Hashtag research to identify the most high-performing, popular hashtags, while exposing yourself to new ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of on your own. 

4. Stickers are your best friends! 

From GIFS, to polls and location stickers, these added extras can help you interact with your followers in fresh ways, and boost engagement by making your stories more interactive and increasing the potential for your content to reach Instagrammers in your region with similar interests.

5. Plan! Plan! Plan! 

Just like your feed, it’s important to have a plan for your Instagram Stories. From incorporating Instagram Stories content that aligns with your posts to creating content for festive holidays you will be able to have a clearer idea of what should be coming up next. While this may sound like a time-consuming task, by having a well-organised plan, it could eventually end up helping you save time in the long run, and not to mention help increase the brand’s consistency. 

Now it’s up to you to try out these tips and tricks and get your creativity flowing! There’s no doubt about it: Instagram Stories is one of the key success factors to your Instagram marketing strategy and while it may require a bit of trial and error, we hope that this article will help give you a better head start!